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The present invention relates to firearms, and specifically to bipods for use with a light-weight machine gun. A machine gun is not a shoulder-fired weapon like a rifle. It may be fired from the hip but is best fired when supported at the muzzle end by a bipod or other structure. Machine guns are heavy, they become quite hot when fired, and the forces associated with rapid firing makes it difficult to maintain accurate targeting unless the muzzle end is property supported.
A bipod has been a staple accessory for many military firearms since the beginning of firearm development. The bipod generally cradles the barrel of a firearm and has two legs that can be planted on the ground. The bipod provides stability and support for the weapon when fired, especially when fired in long bursts.
To be effective, a machine gun must be highly mobile and rapidly deployable. The light-weight machine gun with its bipod must be capable of being removed from one position, carried in a variety of transportation vehicles (e.g. personnel carriers, airplanes, open trucks, etc) to another position, and set up quickly, and the attached bipod should not interfere with that redepolyment. A bipod must also meet other common military objectives such as low weight, ease of use, simple construction, low cost, and high durability.
The twentieth century advent of the light-weight machine gun and the mechanized military has led to a refinement in the state of the art of bipods. Far from just a simple inverted V, current bipods are more complicated devices that include telescoping legs, swivel mounts, and folding structures. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,351,224, issued to Curtis, teaches a pair of L-shaped channels that telescope and fold from a deployed position to a stowed position. The bipod only allows for one direction of leg travel and each leg must be folded individually. U.S. Pat. No. 4,625,620, issued to Harris, teaches a pair of telescoping tubular legs that are individually folded and adjusted. In U.S. Pat. No. 5,711,103, issued to Keng, a swivel mount to incorporated into a bipod that allows a gunner to aim the weapon while keeping the bipod stationary. Keng also teaches a pair of telescoping tubular legs that are frictionally locked.
The prior art of firearm bipods, while extensive, is not without shortcomings. Many of the designs have many parts. One significant drawback to the prior art is that the bipod legs must be deployed separately, i.e. the legs must be unfolded one at a time rather than with a single motion. This means the user must either make two separate motions, or must set the gun down and unfold the legs with both hands. The releasing mechanisms that allow the legs to telescope and fold, such as the one disclosed by Curtis, are often overly complex, unreliable, or create a device that is somewhat unwieldy when transported in a small vehicle. Many of the designs, such as the one employing tubular legs with frictional locks as disclosed by Keng, are not suitable for military applications because they are not suitable for combat; dirt or damage to the legs can interfere with the telescoping. Therefore an improved bipod is needed that will be more robust, and easier and quicker to use than prior art bipods.
Briefly recited and according to its major aspects, the present invention is a bipod for a firearm such as a light-weight machine gun in which the telescoping legs can be deployed with one hand. The present invention has two legs that are connected by spring-based system that allows the legs to be deployed from a stowed position by applying pressure to just one leg. The legs of the present bipod may be stored facing either towards the stock of the gun or towards the muzzle.
When the legs are folded to a deployed position, the spring-based system acts against the legs, causing them to deploy. The spring-based system is housed inside a body that supports a yoke cradling the barrel of the gun in such a way that the gun and its yoke can be rotated radially and axially through a small angle with respect to the body.
Each leg can telescope incrementally between a minimum length and a maximum length, using spring-loaded buttons to lock the legs in place once the desired length is reached. However, because of the design of the buttons, the user can extend the legs simply by pulling on the end of the leg.
An important feature of the present invention is the spring-based system for deploying the legs. Simply rotating one leg from either stored position, pointing forward or rearward, to a direction roughly perpendicular to the stored position, cause the other leg to follow and, when rotated far enough, to spring to the deployed position where the legs are splayed instead of parallel. This feature allows very rapid deployment of the bipod with one band.
Another important feature is the telescoping legs that are extended by pulling and are secured in each successive greater length by the buttons. This feature also facilitates rapid deployment, and cooperates with the spring-based system for the overall speed of deployment of the bipod legs in the right length and splayed in minimal time.
Still another feature of the present invention is the design of the body and spring-based system that permits the legs of the bipod to be stored facing the muzzle or the stock end of the machine gun.
Other features and their advantages will be apparent to those skilled in the art of firearm accessory design and fabrication from a careful reading of the Detailed Description of Preferred Embodiments accompanied by the following drawings.